


Kathikrta

by AllegoriesInMediasRes



Series: Baahubali fics [10]
Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Baahubali Birthday Exchange, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Bhalla Creepiness, Canon-Typical Violence, Devasena-centric, Gen, Missing Scene, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 06:17:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15527964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: Kathikrta (Sanksrit): reduced to a mere tale, e.g. dead





	Kathikrta

**Author's Note:**

  * For [avani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/gifts), [MayavanavihariniHarini](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayavanavihariniHarini/gifts).



> For Avani! This… is not exactly what you asked for. But I read this prompt:
> 
> “Any, in-universe history books/partially discovered documents, portraits, etc. Particular love for said historians being as inaccurate (or tragically accurate) as you want.”
> 
> and it collided with a bunch of headcanons I had floating around about Devasena in chains. And besides, spoken accounts are also historical sources, right? Even though (or especially) given its tendency to be distorted and twisted and contain grains of truth wrapped up in lies. 
> 
> For Shubhra! This is more Devasena-centric than anything else, and Amarendra & Sivagami are only with her in thoughts, but you did mention Devasena in a couple of your prompts, so hopefully this fulfills at least half of your cravings!
> 
> “At the best of times, a story is a slippery thing. Perhaps that was why it changed with each telling. Or is that the nature of all stories, the reason for their power?”
> 
> “Perhaps that is the miracle of stories. They make us realize that we’re not alone in our folly and our suffering.”
> 
> \- “The Palace of Illusions” by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Bhalla comes to Devasena frequently, like a man goes to a kitchen for meals, like Ravana visited Sita to secure her capitulation. Except even Ravana kept Sita in a garden. Of course, he also gave her a deadline of two months by which she had to give in, or else be chopped up and eaten.

Bhalla has never given her a deadline: a double-edged sword that brings relief, but also uncertainty. Beyond enjoying the sight of her in fetters, a sight that upset Baahu so, what does he intend to do with her? Intend to do _to_ her?

The first few days of her captivity, whenever he comes, her gut twists and she is sure he has come to take her by force. But he doesn’t. She would have expected more -- _base_ \-- abuse from him, but he seems content to watch and mock, and occasionally yank the chains. Why does he keep her here?

He killed Baahu and Sivagami, but left her and Kattappa alive. He wants something from her.

In a way, she looks forward to his visits. Sometimes he talks about Baahu and Sivagami, his recollections of the childhood he shared with them. Devasena is grateful to know anything about Baahu, even if it is filtered through Bhalla’s perspective.

Baahu never talked much about his childhood, as it was a painful topic. He did tell her of the night Sivagami became queen, and how she defended the two children in her arms. He had told her the story on the boat ride from Kuntala back to Mahishmati, hoping to reassure her worries over whether her mother-in-law would appreciate a woman with similar fire.

(She would not.)

Upon meeting the Rajmata for herself, Devasena had thought the story was ironic. Sivagami became queen by dismantling a plot, yet could not recognize the injustice of her own measures when confronted with it.

Now, the story only fills her with sadness. Even Devasena did not realize the depths of Bhalla’s betrayal until it was too late.

* * *

“I suppose Baahubali never told you about the night he was born? And how his mother took the throne?”

Night bescreens the public square as Bhallaladeva strides in, not bothering to introduce himself -- betrayal has a way of eliminating formalities like that. She is currently locked up in her cage, her freedom to roam at least the square having been revoked for no reason other than to remind her that he is the king and she is his prisoner, and she is entirely at his mercy.

“But of course he must have. His _beloved_ mother, in whose name he swore every oath, whom he trusted like a pig trusts the farmer that will slaughter it. Did it ever inspire marital discord between you two? They all sing of your loyalty to your husband, like Sita’s devotion to her Rama, but was there ever a moment when you wavered?”

Devasena twitches involuntarily, and he leans in at the sound of rustling chains. “Did you know his last words were about his mother? Not about you or your precious spawn. _Amma jaagardey_.”

“His last words were _Jai Mahishmati,”_ Devasena corrects him quietly. “And you can never know what his last thoughts were.”

Bhalla’s smirk flattens at realizing he cannot hurt her with this line of taunting, and Devasena is grimly satisfied. Later she will learn the value of silence, far more deadly than any well-aimed jab, but for now the shackles upon her wrists are still shiny and new, and her breasts still twinge and leak with milk, and the outrage in her heart has not yet simmered into long-lasting hatred.

“But anyway. The night Sivagami Devi became Queen.”

Bhalla steps back, as though he were preparing to retell the great war at Kurukshetra. “King Vikramadeva -- your beloved late father-in-law -- had died, and my father was barred from the throne because of his arm. Yet my mother saw no problem with securing for herself the throne that had been denied to her own husband.”

He paces slowly, methodically around her cage, compelling her to rotate with him and causing the chains to clink.

“She was crafty, you know. And pragmatic. She even waited until her own sister-in-law was dead before she appropriated her child.”

 _As though you actually cared about the former Queen of Mahishmati_. Devasena recalls how during her first disastrous court appearance, Bijjala had called Baahu the cause of his mother’s death. Baahu had never spoken of it openly, but he had been overly anxious about her condition as she neared her due date. When she had finally snapped that she was fine and would be fine, he had ducked his head in shame and mumbled, “I would not have you leave me as my mother did.”

In the dip of his voice, she had heard the pain of a lifetime of being named the harbinger of bad luck, responsible for his own mother’s death, a curse upon Mahishmati. She had pressed her hands to his face at that realization, vowing to do what she could to ease that burden, hoping that when the baby was born healthy, Baahu would finally begin to forget--

“She kept Baahu around like a dog, just like she did Kattappa.” Bhalla’s back is to her, but even through the darkness she can hear the menacing chuckle in his voice. “She _knew_ that Baahu would always be pathetically grateful to her, for taking him in when no one else would. He would be a useful ally like that. Just as she never freed Kattappa. Oh, she’d wax lyrical about the evils of slavery in private, but when it came to politics, she was all brutal practicality. She knew someone as devoted to the throne as he would be an invaluable asset.”

_Is that so? Or in the words of Sivagami Devi, do I hear your own voice?_

He punctuates each statement with a grand sweep of his arms, almost like -- like Baahu would look like as he was orating to the villagers. No surprise there -- they both learned politics from the same mother.

“Oh yes, she was crafty. She let the coup get as far as it did so she could look like the hero, striding in and saving the day.”

It’s horribly fascinating to watch Bhalla spinning the truth as he does, to see how he makes the innocent sinful and lies plausible if not believable. For a moment, she almost cannot blame Sivagami for being taken in.

“She carried me first in her arms, you know. Baahu was in the maidservant’s arms behind her.” Bhalla looks out onto the darkened square, as though speaking to a great crowd. “Even then, he was her darling. He was safely behind, while I was in front, with nothing to shield me from Martand’s blade.”

 _You shot an arrow into the unprotected back of the mother who wielded a dagger to save you_.

Devasena petulantly wishes Sivagami had never stopped that knife.

“And then you must know how she seated herself upon the throne that belonged to her neither by marriage or blood, even as her husband stood there below. She even took it upon herself to declare that I would not be named heir, but instead that I and her favorite would be raised to compete for the throne.”

Bhalla drops his arms and turns to look directly at Devasena. “Would you have done that? Would you have chosen the son of your heart over the son of your blood? Would you have set them against each other?”

The question should be mocking, but there is an intensity in his eyes that she doesn’t like. As though he really wants to know the answer.

She wonders if Bhalla was born evil, or if there was a turning point, a moment when he began hating Baahu. She would prefer to believe it was his father’s malign influence, and yet there is something intrinsically rotten in Bhalla, perhaps from the moment he was born.

He leans in closer, until she can feel his breath. She recoils but does not show it; she will not give him that satisfaction. “What _would_ you have done? You are so like her, you would have done to me as she did. I was the true heir, and yet my own mother denied me my right.”

Bhalla’s teeth are bared suddenly in a snarl. “She cared _nothing_ for me. Would you have treated your own son like that? Would you, _Rajmata_?”

He slams a fist against the bars, and this time Devasena does physically recoil, and it is not even because of the blow. As far as Bhalla is concerned, Mahendra is dead, and he does not see her as the Queen Mother, only his prisoner. He would only call her that title to mock her. But tonight is not a night of mockery -- it is of something else far more bitter and fanatical.

There is only one woman he would have ever viewed as Rajmata.

Dear God-- he sees her as a _mother figure_?

The conclusion snaps into focus with merciless accuracy. He crawls back to her time and time again, as a child seeks its mother, hoping for-- for-- what he never got from his mother in life.

“Perhaps I did him a favor in drowning him at birth,” Bhalla says sourly. “Better a watery grave than whatever fate _you_ would have consigned him to.”

With that, he stalks off, Devasena watching him go. Griminess is a daily part of life in a cage, but she has never felt as filthy as she does now.

At least she knows now why he does not touch her.

Unease seeps into her: suppose he means to end her as he ended his own mother…

But he wants her to live and suffer, in chains, just as he binds Kattappa with invisible shackles. Sivagami’s story and her own story might meld together in his depraved mind, but the endings will be different. She knows this with a certainty she cannot explain. And she knows what he wants from her now, and knows that she will not give it to him.

She has identified his weakness with her keen warrior’s eye -- and will exploit it as ruthlessly as Sivagami Devi would have.

* * *

On rare occasions-- sometimes more than a year passes between them-- Kattappa comes by to implore her to escape, guilt a hoarse noose around his throat.

The truth is, she could escape quite easily. Getting out of the cage is the easy part; getting out of Mahishmati is difficult.

She actually escaped once: knocked out the guard sent to bring her food and ran off. In retaliation, Bhalla had ordered that for every day she remained at liberty, he would execute one citizen of Mahishmati.

Devasena was sorely tempted to just leave, but she couldn’t do that to Baahu’s kingdom, Baahu’s citizens. To _her_ citizens. The kind-hearted, hardworking citizens of Mahishmati who had taken them in and worshipped them, even after they were banished. They were the sole reason that she had not begged Baahu to return to Kuntala after the trial.

Kuntala had already been razed to the ground because of her.

Bhalla would have no qualms about doing the same to Mahishmati in her name.

She was Queen (Mother) of Mahishmati and could not let that happen.

Devasena had marched herself back in of her own accord, shaking off the guards and striding in with her head held high in proud submission. She had walked as slowly as she dared, ensuring as many as possible witnessed it. Bhalla spread rumors of the prisoner who had to be dragged back in chains, but she knew the truth would survive in the whispers of citizens.

In her girlhood, she had scorned Sita for not escaping with Hanuman, for being so slavishly devoted to her husband and his glory. Now Devasena recalls the other reasons: the safety of the other captives in Lanka, Sita’s dream of destroying Ravana for once and for all, and thinks she understands Vaidehi a little better now.

Devasena cannot escape, but that does not mean she remains idle. She does pull-ups on the bars and practices her kicks and punches. The chains clank and clank, but she learns to live with them and work with them. Men who have been lamed and crippled continue to fight in combat, and she remains uninjured.

She recalls fondly when she could move her hands at will; she will have to learn how to shoot a bow all over again when she gets out. Although if she had access to a bow, she could try using her bound hands and her feet… perhaps she can even use the chains as a weapon in themselves. She is bound but not bowed; she will not stop. Her old training master used to say that every day you don’t practice is a day you get worse, and how many days has she wasted already?

Whenever she is allowed out of her cage on a leash and left unsupervised by the guards, she jogs around and stays in shape, revelling in every stride she can execute. At least her ankles are not bound and she can walk unencumbered by anything other than her wrist chains.

Kattappa shakes his head sadly at what he deems her folly, but he presents her with fresh _chapathis_ \-- the best fare a slave gets, but better than what she usually eats. She recalls Baahu’s tales of how he would demand that his guru feed him. Kattappa feeds her now, with his own hands, the warm gleam in his eyes splintered by pain. He brushes a hand over her tangled hair like a father would his daughter -- or his son.

He compliments her on her discipline, and advises her to turn her wrists with her when she kicks. Since they are bound, it increases her momentum and keeps her balance. She thanks him warmly -- she knows what these stolen moments cost him, and not just in terms of safety -- and he even hands her a few branches, humoring her.

She tosses them onto the trough, which now contains a finger’s depth of timber. She and Baahu stockpiled wood in their cottage, those brief few months, to burn in the coming winter. Any chance to use them had evaporated before autumn even bronzed the leaves upon the trees.

But Bhallaladeva’s pyre will be built out of every last twig she collects now.

* * *

The alleged crimes she is imprisoned for include adultery (for marrying Baahu instead of Bhalla, against the Queen Mother’s command _as if he cared anything for his mother’s orders_ ), murder (of the loyal Commander-in-Chief Sethupathy; in light of her later, more egregious crimes, exile was not a severe enough punishment), and attempted regicide (for was she not as neck-deep in that supposed plot as her husband?).

It’s a bizarre zigzagging of truth and embellishment all mixed together, but it always leaves her oddly unsettled. There is a missing link in the story.

 _Something_ happened to her brother-in-law Kumar Varma, she knows. He left shortly before she went into labor, and she has not seen him since, not even afterwards. He would not have sat idle when hearing of her plight, and if he had been killed trying to free her, Bhalla would have flung it in her face as much he could.

But a dead silence is all that arises.

No stories arise at all, only a dead silence, and she thinks she would almost prefer his name to be whispered with hatred, than to not be whispered at all. At least then she would have something to work with, something she could chisel away at until she found the gleaming, ugly truth at the heart of it.

But she has nothing.

* * *

Bhalla shackled her in the middle of the public square so a thousand eyes may be witnesses to her humiliation daily. But from her vantage point, the populace also has easy access to her.

Visitors come, perhaps once a fortnight or so, always entreating her to escape. They bring care packages with them -- balm, fresh fruit, clean cloth, a comb (she had never imagined how much she would miss a comb). They are perhaps the reason she does not die of the filth or malnourishment alone.

She always refuses to leave, and she supposes word travels of it, because eventually they stop asking. But they continue to come anyway, and it warms her heart. The citizens of Mahishmati do not lack for bravery.

They come to her for advice, and she does what she can to squeeze out every bit of substantial  information from her memory. She gives them tips on how to survive on a month’s rations, when the King’s soldiers take all their gold. Medicinal tips, form what little she can recall of Sumitra _bhabi’s_ tutelage and the few months she was in the village. If she is at a loss for information, she tells them of someone who might know. She demonstrates small tricks so that innocent citizens, women in particular, might go about their daily business without harassment. For all that Devasena had challenged Sivagami, she had made Mahishmati safer for women than it had been in decades. And with her gone, the common women suffer.

Sometimes people do not come for advice, but simply to talk. A child asks her to listen to a song they composed, or ask for a story. They tell of the mundane details of their life, simply chat. It is all hushed and stolen, in bits and pieces, but it gives her a reason to go on, from one end of the week to the next.

* * *

“Parameshwara bless Your Majesty.”

It is a regular visitor this time, come all the way from the border to talk with her. Travel is dangerous under this regime, and she appreciates the risks that people take on her behalf. He holds up a flask of clean water to her lips, and she laps it up greedily. She settles down cross-legged on the floor of the cage and leans in, eager for news.

He brings talks of the Kuntalan guerrilla warfare being waged along the borders, how King Jayasena is determined to rescue Queen Devasena and punish Mahishmati for its crimes. She smiles to think of her brother captaining a renegade army -- though she twinges with discomfort at the rumors of soldiers not much more than children-- and listens on.

“There are tales of you as well,” her visitor whispers, and Devasena perks up to hear it. Immodest it is, but she is always greedy to know that people still care about her. “Of your suffering and your forbearance. It carries far and wide. You are like a Bhishma to the people, in the night for them to confess their secrets and draw strength from.”

Devasena blinks. _Bhishma?_

She has been likened, both favorably and venomously, to Draupadi, to Sita, Kunti, Kaikeyi (for had her arrival not been the vow to which her husband yoked himself and ultimately died for?), Savitri, Krishna even -- but the grandsire of the Kurus?

Such a comparison is more suited for Kattappa, she thinks, not unkindly. He lay on his bed of arrows, tied to the land, but any who called for him, he answered… just as people come to her under cover of darkness, so that they might benefit from her advice.

The tales that spring up around her, she thinks tiresomely. What it is to be put on a pedestal.

Very well -- for is she not shackled now by chains outside and vows inside? She is still Queen (Mother) of this land, and if she must assume Bhishma’s guise, why not?

Let lore and legend make of her what they will, for it is these stories that keep her alive, and these stories in which the fire of Mahishmati will continue to burn.

**Author's Note:**

> Credit for the headcanons about Devasena’s brief, ill-fated escape and about Bhalla’s unresolved mommy issues (sorry) goes to Avani. Credit for her secretly practicing martial arts while imprisoned goes to Avani, LucyLovecraft/@tuulikki, and Shubhra/MayavanavihariniHarini!


End file.
